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Geert Wilders’ Anti-immigration Party fails to win Dutch elections

Mark Rutte, the Dutch center-right Prime Minister, scored a resounding victory over anti-Immigration and anti-EU Geert Wilders in an election on Wednesday. With almost all the results of the general elections factored in, the victorious Prime Minister said that Dutch voters had “rejected the wrong kind of populism”. Election turnout stood at 80.2%, the highest since the 1980s. His liberal party, VVD, is set to remain the largest, with 33 seats, although it lost eight. The Prime Minister hailed the win as “a feast for democracy.”

The Freedom Party, led by Wilders, was in second place with 20 seats, a gain of five.

The Christian Democrats (CDA) and the liberal D66 party were close behind with 19 seats each.

The Green-Left party also did well, winning 14 seats, an increase of 10.

The Labour Party (PvdA), lost 29 seats, winning only nine.

Parliamentary seats in Holland are allocated in exact proportion to a party’s vote share; hence Rutte’s party will need to go into a coalition with three other parties. Negotiations for forming the next government could take several months.